A thought on the future of sounds/samples - discussion welcomed.

[Constructed Identity]

Back to the topic- I would like to think that the days of sample packs are coming to an end. It was never a particularly fun way of making music and with Behringer producing all of the classics as clones, everyone will be able to play a real instrument.

Using samples is fun, totally central to some styles and some artists.

I also enjoy playing real instruments, like synths, bass guitars etc.

Don't own anything by Behringer. Also, they have no effect on the majority of samplists or instrument players in the world.

I can see Drum'n Bass and Hip Hop always being heavily reliant on samples (and MPC) but I think other genres will use less. Maybe its just my hope.

[vurt]

why restrict what others do?
some people will make music i don't like, using guitars. doesn't make guitars bad.

[lobanov]

Do you think we will still have sample libraries in five years ?

May be, you won't believe me but we still have real pianos and some of us use them rather than sample libraries, samplers and MIDI keyboards to play music. It's true, I don't lie and don't dream.

[enroe]

And the whole picture means: AI will not be reduced to “sound building”. It will run through the entire production chain without the end user, i.e. the listener and the teenagers, even noticing it.

So how do you see things changing ? Do you think we will still have sample libraries in five years ?

Yes, don't worry, there will still be sample libraries for years to come. But - and this is the development - their importance will decrease. Just like the importance of human musical creativity. The reason for this is simply that AI can do everything so much better - and most of society and the music industry are turning to AI-driven methods.

Of course, individual nerds can still tinker around in private and create or work with sample libraries. Nobody, and certainly not AI, will forbid them. But they will increasingly find themselves in a strange niche.

[jancivil]

been in "a strange niche" since ca 1980 when I began in earnest to become a composer.

Re: [sample libraries] importance will decrease... importance meaning what? Importance to whom?
In certain cases physical modeling can provide an arguably more accurate product than the equivalent sample lib taking up tens of GB of hard drive space (only quite recently has modeling an entire string orchestra become a going concern, or I might write 'hundreds of GB...'). This may reach a critical mass in and of itself, economics being a crucial driver here.

"AI" taking over music production entirely is quite an assertion. The last clause of that sentence reads as though to vaunt 'teenage audience' to the extent of being autarchic. All human input ultimately deemed unnecessary to music because we'll all be stunted, development arrested at the stage of adolescence?
It seems only reasonable to project that an even higher percentage of folk are this - are what Frank Zappa named "Debbie" - than currently. Maybe this has reached critical mass already.

DEBBIE is incredibly stupid. She has been raised to respect the values and attitudes which her parents hold sacred. Sometimes she dreams about being kissed by a lifeguard.

When the people in THE SECRET OFFICE THEY RUN EVERYTHING FROM found out about DEBBIE, they were thrilled. She was perfect. She was hopeless. She was THEIR KIND OF GIRL. She was immediately chosen for the critical role of 'ARCH-TYPICAL IMAGINARY POP MUSIC CONSUMER AND ULTIMATE ARBITER OF MUSICAL TASTE FOR THE ENTIRE NATION'. From that moment on, everything musical in this country would have to be modified to conform to what they computed to be HER NEEDS & DESIRES.

DEBBIE'S 'taste' determined the size, shape and color of all musical information in the United States during the latter part of the twentieth century. - keynote speech to ASUC, 1984.

That's a perfect reductio ad absurdum, in how illustrative [the problem embodied by] Debbie is. Very few people give a f**k today; project a future where this is worse by degrees, OK, but so what. My point here is that that argument takes pop music as all music.
IE: If you're not in a strange niche now, conferring the state of things as they are, you've already given in. This state of things (and to whatever extent this was the case when I began) has no bearing on what I create. You aren't going to have a machine doing what I do.
None of that means a thing afaic.

[Michael L]

Your contribution as a unique artist is your strange niche

[jancivil]

Since I decided to enter the fray again, I'll be bugged if I don't address this one. esp. since
koalaboy wrote: ↑Sat Dec 02, 2023 12:43 am
It's clear that we need AI to help people read topics

Dismissing AI as a knee-jerk reaction is possibly one of the most blinkered views there is

in reply to "the threat of AI is a knee jerk reaction"

It does seem the same quality knee jerk reaction as all the other reactions to the newfangled ways in the past.
I'm not threatened by it, it's not going to put me out of work I don't pursue in the first place, or be someone I'm competing with as though music is a sport.
I am however somewhat irritated by all the hype. 'AI does everything better' as though taken on faith, or with little if any evidence. My experience so far is that the use of such requires the same quality of personal attention as working without such assistance. Demonstrably so.

Then:

Anyone who wants to get involved in this cycle - maybe even want to become creative himself or herself - will have to realize
brusquely and hard that he doesn't fit in.

Fitting in as something we have to worry about... Who gives a f**k. A creative person not fitting in, oh clutch those pearls, do.
The problem with pop music is exactly this, conformity at all costs. Replicate the last thing that sold, same as it ever was, turtles all the way down. You've made Debbie your queen.

[koalaboy]

Dismissing AI as a knee-jerk reaction is possibly one of the most blinkered views there is

in reply to "the threat of AI is a knee jerk reaction"

It does seem the same quality knee jerk reaction as all the other reactions to the newfangled ways in the past.
I'm not threatened by it, it's not going to put me out of work I don't pursue in the first place, or be someone I'm competing with as though music is a sport.
I am however somewhat irritated by all the hype. 'AI does everything better' as though taken on faith, or with little if any evidence. My experience so far is that the use of such requires the same quality of personal attention as working without such assistance. Demonstrably so.

We're not there 'provably' yet - you're quite right. It may not put you out of work, or many others, but it absolutely has the potential to disrupt society and many avenues of the musical economy - in this case I was mentioning sample libraries - and as such is something that should be discussed before it reaches the point of no return.

"It won't affect me, and I don't think it's ever going to" is a fine position to take, but a very self-centered view of the world.

It was precisely that it needs so much attention/assistance currently, that I focused on just sound generation. If you don't use samples, or design sounds, then sure.

[Kalamata Kid]

Seem we are talking about bAIby.
AIdult and AIdvanced is no that far away.
I suspect there will be many surprises on the way to a SuperAI.